your skin makes me cry
by someofusare
Summary: Post series Sylaire. Gabriel-centric before and after the show. "He's wonders if he's been in love with her since she was the last real thing on earth, since hers was the only face he knew anymore." In which Gabriel loses a mother and loses his mind but gains a roommate and earns a heart.


"you float like a feather in a beautiful world. i wish i was special. you're so fucking special." creep by radiohead

His mother names him after an angel, sighing softly into his hair as she whispers the word over and over again. His father, at once as volatile and beautiful as the sea, rages through the house.

She shakes like a wounded animal, clutching him to her chest as tightly as she can. Her voice continues to chant his name like a prayer until Gabriel thinks that perhaps it is one. A plea for someone to do something, for anyone to hear her. He raises his chubby fist to her eyes, patting at her salt tears in childish comfort. She smiles even as the closet door flings open.

_I'll teach you, you fucking whore._

The diner is empty, save for his parents and another couple. The woman who he doesn't know is smiling too brightly at him, her crooked teeth stained with touches of lipstick, her eyes like a wild dog's. His father shakes hands with the man, nodding his head briskly. He can see the money slip into his father's coat pocket, a wad of green paper. The money is tainted now, that much Gabriel can tell, just like everything he touches is tainted, just as everything he touches is in ruins.

The ground outside is uneven as he runs to the car, as he runs back to his mother. The desert is too hot, the sun beating down on Gabriel's dark hair, the sand burning his feet through his shoes. He can see them arguing through the back window, is shocked to see that she is actually fighting back.

Samson slices her head open and throws her body in the trunk as Gabriel watches. Her arms are as white and smooth as doves, her face still blushing like she's only just lying down. He stumbles back to the entrance of the diner and throws up on the concrete steps. When the woman cleans his face, she scrubs too hard as she chastises Gabriel for making such a mess. Good little boys are nice and clean.

On the car ride home, he forgets halfway through his screams why exactly it is he's crying. His mother smiles in the front seat, her stare blank and frightening.

She is too moody, one day loving and happy, the next paranoid and livid. His father leaves when he is sixteen, just after his sophomore year.

"I can't stay here anymore, Virginia. I think there's something wrong with you."

"Something wrong with me? Something wrong with _me_?"

The kids in school make fun of him for his hair, for his glasses, for his too-big eyebrows and too-soft voice. He solves math problems too quickly and can dissect the frog in science without even looking at the worksheet. He still fixes watches in his room, holding each time-piece to his ear as it sings.

When he is a senior, he tutors a beautiful blonde cheerleader in history. His mother tells him to give her flowers, to read her poetry, to shut up, can't you see I'm busy?

He gives her a bouquet of daisies when he asks her on a date, smiling nervously as he waits for a response. She tells him softly, "No, I can't. You're just too."

"Too what?"

"Nothing. I'll see you on Monday, Gabriel. Okay?"

On Monday he gets shoved into a wall by a massive hulk of a teenager who sneers as he taunts him about his schoolgirl crush. Gabriel can feel anger building inside of his throat like an iron chokehold, until he can't even speak, until his vision is clouded with red. His fingers twitch on a not-yet-learned reflex.

His mother yells at him until her voice is hoarse about why can't you be normal? and his head feels impossibly heavy. He sleeps for fourteen hours and calls in sick for the rest of the week. He won't be behind on any of his work, anyway. He has already finished most of the textbooks.

He gets into Yale, but he doesn't go.

"College is too expensive anyway, sweetheart. They'd never accept you there."

He becomes a watchmaker, turns the room below the apartment back into a store. His mother is both happy and furious that he is sticking to the familiar, and she gets headaches when she stays downstairs too long.

The shop does reasonably well, considering the fact that most watch stores are obsolete in this day and age. He fixes every time-piece without even looking. He reads science textbooks in his free time. His mother continues to swing from okay to not okay like a wrecking ball.

The city is too hard, the sounds of the subway overpowering the ticking on his wrist.

_Don't you walk away from me, you selfish little brat._

When he is twenty-five, an Indian man comes into the shop to see him. He tells him he could be special. And Gabriel gets perhaps a little too excited.

He sees within his grasp a chance to be different, to be everything he ever wanted, to leave his mother, to leave the store, to be _something_.

He murders the man with telepathy without blinking, but he tries to kill himself after two days.

When he ties the noose around his neck, all he can hear is the ticking of all the clocks, the sound grating on his nerves until he thinks he'll go insane.

A little blonde girl with delicate features tells him that he doesn't need to do that to himself, but then she brings someone else with powers to him and Gabriel kills again. This time though, all he feels is power. He gives himself a new name, a new life, and he feels strong.

There is a room in his new apartment for every time he murders someone, for every time he feels good doing so.

He writes on the wall with anything, with marker, with pen, with his own tainted blood.

When he kills them, when he asks them to just be a little quieter, please, I'm working, he uses a voice he's totally unfamiliar with. He wonders where it comes from, that lust for power.

(He takes a visceral pleasure in the fact that he can remain so calm when he slices their heads open with only a swipe of his hand.)

Every time it's over, he writes a little bigger, a little more carelessly; forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Sylar realizes there is a girl on Chandra Suresh's list with the best power yet. He feels vindicated when he finds out that she's only just a little blonde cheerleader.

_Fucking freak, don't talk to her._

The only sound in the whole city is the ticking clocks. He fixes them because that's all he can do, because every suicide attempt only ends with him healing. Because even the guillotine he got his hands on only ended in him waking up, whole again, lying on the floor.

All of the pictures in all the apartments in the city have no faces, the eyes of each person blacked out with a sharpie. The mirrors are all cracked too, and he wonders who did that before the evacuation. The only face he sees for three years is hers, as strong and determined and beautiful as the first time he saw her. He wonders if she survived whatever this was.

Every day he wakes up and fixes time-pieces, goes to the supermarket and raids the nonperishable items despite the fact that they should be gone by now. He draws whenever he can, not pictures of the future like he used to, but pictures of vases and watches and her face, over and over, her eyes and her mouth and her impossible youth.

He shouts at the sky that he'll be better, that he'll be good, if he just gets one more chance. Even to his own ears it sounds dishonest. After a while it's the truth, though. He would do anything.

He stops speaking after the first year, never opens his mouth except to eat. He begins to suspect that this is hell, that he did die in whatever catastrophe this was. Either way, he deserves it.

He practices controlling himself, goes a week, then a month, then two years, without using any of his powers. He can't turn off his original, can still understand everything except what happened. But he feels better for trying.

The first time he hears Peter's voice he thinks he is going insane (finally). When he rushes onto the street and sees Petrelli standing there looking exactly like he did the last time he saw him, he nearly screams with happiness. The first real face he's seen in years.

Peter hates being there with him, hates every time they run into each other in the empty streets. The first time he sees his tattoo of Claire, he goes into full-on attack mode. Gabriel spends two days cleaning the blood off of the wall.

He tries to convince him that this isn't real, that it's just a dream, and after a while Gabriel actually believes him. It seems unlikely that the city would still be intact after a massacre that rendered it devoid of life. But years and years of being alone makes him still a little skeptical, and he continues his routine as usual just in case.

He starts reading books, fictional ones, again, sketching her face in the edges of the pages. _The Pillars of the Earth_ is his favorite, and he reads and rereads until the spine is bent in two from overuse.

The wall surrounding the city is massive, the bricks climbing so far up that he thinks there's no end. Trying to tear down the wall is useless, but sometimes at midnight Gabriel picks up Peter's sledgehammer to work at it anyway. He feels better when he's moving, feels better for using his the muscles in his arms and back for the first time in years.

One day, when Peter finally forgives him, the wall crumbles like a house of cards.

_Hush now, sweetheart. Mommy's gonna read you a story, and all the bad dreams will go away._

The jump is short, almost anti-climactic after the climb she made. The reporters swarm Claire, clawing at her hands and feet like she's a god, like she's the answer to all their prayers. Gabriel can see Noah Bennet rushing over with his partner (he remembers cold hands and hollow eyes) and calling for Hiro.

After he blinks, Claire is standing in the middle of the field alone, all of the reporters, her father, Hiro, gone from sight. He thinks that maybe he should've known.

She falls to her knees, her face so much more defeated than he's ever seen it. He can feel Peter moving at his side, running to his niece. When he throws his arms around her, and she buries her tear-streaked face in his neck, Gabriel feels a perverse sort of satisfaction. He's not the worst thing in the world anymore.

_I'll snap your fucking neck, Katie, I swear to god. I'll bash your fucking face in, I'll break every goddamn tooth._

Noah offers him a job, which is weird.

Peter's already working with the new Company as an agent, partnered with some nobody who needs a babysitter in the form of a super-powered EMT. Since the wall, he and Gabriel have been sharing an apartment, which is nice. Emma and Peter are the only people left who aren't afraid of him (not that Peter was ever really afraid of him), so he has two friends at least. He has some semblance of a routine.

"Why would I want to work with you?"

"You need something, Sylar. Your ledger isn't clean just yet. You'd be my partner, so I can look after you."

He clenches his fist. "I asked you to call me Gabriel."

He takes the job anyway. Going back to being a watchmaker seems like a worse option, and Peter seems okay with how they're running things which means it's clean as a whistle.

Noah is a great partner, unsurprisingly. He's vicious and cruel when he wants to be and kind and caring when he needs to be. Gabriel actually likes the work, which is the surprising part. Under the new regime, the guidance of someone named Claude Raines, they actually sit down with those they want to track and talk to them, tell them about what it's like to live with powers, how they must never let people who can't handle it know about their secret. The man is apparently some sort of messiah, because when Peter hears that he's the one running the show he practically squeals.

"God, Petrelli, fanboy much?"

"Shut up, asshole, I just know the guy. He helped me with everything, taught me how to control it. He'll be great with all this."

Gabriel only snorts and returns to drawing all the parts of his watch.

Noah comes into work is a bad mood one day, which for Noah means he's ready to shoot the first person who makes a wrong move. Gabriel tiptoes around him, trying to finish up his paperwork without making any unnecessary noise. When he accidentally breaks his pencil and gets up to sharpen it, Noah finally slams his hand on his desk.

"Do you ever just-" He stops. "Have you ever had a girlfriend, Gabriel?"

Gabriel pauses. There's something very wrong with the picture of Noah fucking Bennet asking him relationship advice. And he just called him by his real name for the first time besides that. "I'm not sure I'm the best man to ask. My first girlfriend broke up with me and I murdered the second. So." He shifts uncomfortably. "Why?"

"Lauren just- she told me it wasn't working and she just left. I've been widowed, divorced, and now dumped, and I'm not sure if I can take it anymore. I'm thinking of just giving up."

"Well, you're not a bad looking guy, you know. Maybe you need to wait a bit, let the divorce settle. That's why she took off, right? Thought you weren't over your wife?"

Noah starts, looking shocked. "Yeah. How did you know that?"

Gabriel taps the side of his head with his forefinger. "Intuitive aptitude, remember? I know everything."

Noah snorts, returning to his paperwork. "Yeah, I knew that. I guess the whole thing is just annoying more than anything else. Noah fucking Bennet. Can shoot a man, but can't keep a girl. Figures."

"Are we becoming friends, Bennet?"

"Hmm. Yeah, I suppose we are."

Gabriel smiles to himself and sharpens his pencil.

_You be good here, sweetheart. I love you._

Peter decides that he absolutely needs to have Claude over for dinner. He and Emma spend the whole day in the kitchen, attempting to cook the perfect meal for his mentor. Gabriel lounges on the couch in the living room, running his hands through his hair with a frown on his face.

"Do you think I cut it too short?" he calls to Peter. "I'm not sure if it looks good." He had gotten a haircut recently, finally changing up his style to one that makes his hair curve up on his head in long black spikes. He thinks it makes him look like an overgrown Tintin.

Peter apparently signs what he says to Emma because she sticks her head out of the room and says cheerfully, "You look very handsome, Gabriel. Much better than before."

"Are you saying I didn't look good before?"

"No, I'm saying you look better." She smiles at him in earnest. Emma is one of the good ones, so genuinely nice sometimes Gabriel wonders if she's even human. Of course she's perfect for Peter.

The doorbell rings, the light that Peter installed for Emma going off above Gabriel's head. Emma runs back to the kitchen to tell Peter that he's here.

When Peter opens the door, there's no one there. He simply laughs, and reaches out until hitting something solid. He disappears in front of Gabriel's eyes, until reappearing with what looks like a homeless man.

"What's cooking?" the man asks in a British accent. "Smells delicious."

"Good to have you back, Claude. This is Gabriel, and this is my girlfriend Emma."

Claude waves his hand at them before asking the obvious question. "So, who can do what?"

Emma speaks first. "I can see things. Colors that go with sounds, and I can make people come to me with them or hurt them. It's weird."

"She's kind of like a siren." Gabriel finally joins the conversation. "She can help or harm."

Claude nods thoughtfully. "I've heard of that. Can be a very dangerous thing. And you?"

"He's kind of a mix of everything." Peter supplies. "He's working with Noah."

"You must be Sylar then. Glad to have someone like you on our side. I heard we had a bit of trouble with you before."

"Not anymore. And call me Gabriel, please."

"Fine," Claude replies, "good to finally meet the famous Gabriel Gray. Noah used to complain about you all the time in the beginning. You're growing on him, that's fantastic. It takes a strong will to make Noah Bennet calm down."

"And you're the famous Claude Raines, the invisible man. Peter here is practically in love with you."

Emma laughs as Peter sputters out his denial. Claude simply smiles, shrugs, and makes his way to the dining room.

Dinner is a simple affair, everyone sticking to lighter topics. When Claude leaves, he shakes Gabriel's hand and leans in close.

"Stay with us, Gabriel. Don't want to have to take down one of our own. I know from personal experience that's not very fun for anyone involved."

Gabriel nods firmly. "I know."

_I'll do anything you want, just leave them alone, please, I'll do anything._

The first year Gabriel works at the Company is free from any noteworthy incidents. He almost wants to applaud the fact that he made it through one year without losing control, but he feels like any reminder of the way he was wouldn't be accepted by anyone but him.

"Happy one year anniversary," Noah says dryly, setting the cupcake on his desk as he walks over to his own.

"Aw, Noah, honey, you remembered. Together for a whole year now, isn't that great?"

"Great for you, maybe. I have the most successful record of anyone in this place. You're working with the absolute best."

"Oh, that reminds me, the ice queen called and asked for you. Says she saw her neighbor accidentally fall through his front door. As in without opening it."

Noah stops twirling his pencil on his fingers and sits up straighter. "Tracy called?"

"Don't tell me you have a crush on that terrifying woman? Wait, actually, you guys would work really well together. Your wedding cake could be made with the tears of all your rivals."

"Oh, fuck off. I just haven't heard from her in a while. Where is she now? Back in D.C.?"

Gabriel runs his fingers through his folder to find the note he made of the information. "No, no, says she she's in," he holds up the paper triumphantly, "New York, the island of Manhattan! Wow, everyone's moving to New York these days, you, Tracy, Hiro and his boyfriend and his boyfriend's wife, and, well I guess Mohinder is back in India but he was here for a while-"

"Gray."

"Yeah?"

"You're rambling. Okay, you have too much time on your hands, obviously, so we'll handle this one today." Noah grabs his briefcase, which Gabriel knows is filled with syringes, drugs, and a gun rather than paperwork, before jerking his head toward the door.

"Did you know your watch is running 5 minutes and 37 seconds late losing half a second every three hours? Don't you have any self-respect at all?"

"Shut up, Gray."

Tracy Strauss is of course in the most expensive apartment complex on the upper east side. Noah and Gabriel quickly find out from Tracy where her neighbor will be, but Noah sends Gabriel off to find the man while he asks her "just a few more questions."

"Oh my god, Bennet, this is getting a little pathetic."

"Just go find the guy, okay? Give me this one."

Gabriel finds him in less than thirty minutes, deciding to take the subway to get to the deli he's supposed to be eating at. Even after the wall, he avoids using any of his powers as much as possible. Doing things the human way is much more satisfying in the end.

It's just a simple bag and tag after all, as the guy has apparently already come to terms with the fact that he no longer needs to open doors to get around. Gabriel decides to leave Noah to work out whatever he needs to with the human popsicle and goes back to work.

A week later, he's unsurprised to find out that apparently Noah and Tracy are now an item. Peter is more shocked than Gabriel thinks he should be.

Gabriel takes to listening to classical music while he works, the violins somehow lessening the nervousness he feels when he looks at the faces of people who have things he wants (and even after everything he still _wants_). He finds that when he's distracted, he doesn't feel the hunger as strongly. He chalks it up to the fact that he's always been too bored for his own good, and he buys as many books and movies and TV shows as he can to cancel it out. Peter makes fun of him for his obsession with_ Star Trek_.

The days pass by more quickly than Gabriel would ever think they could. He continues his routine as usual, getting up, going to work, avoiding being murdered by Noah, making jokes that make everyone groan in annoyance, and always sketching (mostly _her_ face, even now, but he avoids Peter whenever he does so).

Peter and Emma announce their engagement three years after the wall.

(Gabriel wonders when he started remembering things as happening _before_ and _after_. He refers to time as B.W. and A.W. to Peter before Peter threatens to punch him in the face. Again.)

Emma remains one of Gabriel's best friends, the only person who never judged him and never would, even after hearing his story. He insists that he couldn't be happier for her and Peter, who has grown to be like a slightly irritating older brother to him (since he stopped growing at twenty-nine).

Unfortunately, it also means that his roommate is leaving, and he'll be alone again, which is not a good idea for him. He has never done well on his own (but then again, he knows where that trait comes from).

_I'll slit my wrists if you don't come back here, Gabriel, I'll open every fucking vein._

She's actually at the engagement announcement party, which Gabriel was not expecting.

The night is as black as it always is, but from his position on the balcony, Gabriel can see a few of the stars, can see the white sliver of the moon. He swirls the amber liquid around in his glass, lifting the tumbler to his lips to drink. He's truly happy for Peter and Emma, but the whole affair is just reminding him of the fact that he'll be alone for the foreseeable future (which stretches out pretty far in front of him).

Peter is giving a speech in the living room, is tearing up as he does so, and Gabriel thinks briefly of all the reasons why he's not supposed to be killing people anymore.

She stumbles out onto the balcony from the glass sliding door, leaning heavily onto the railing and looking down at the lights of the city below.

"Hello, cheerleader."

Claire starts, looking up at Gabriel. He waves one hand slightly in greeting. "Sylar. I did hear you and Peter were the best of friends now. How's the not killing people thing working out for you?"

"It's Gabriel. And it's going pretty well. In fact, I'm working with your dad now, did you hear?"

She shifts on her heels, flipping her body so that she's facing away from the city. "Yeah, I did. I eventually forgave him, you know."

"Yeah, I know. You're pretty good at forgiving everyone but me."

"Maybe because you're just different. Special, was it?"

Gabriel decides to ignore that and leans farther off the edge of the railing, throwing his glass from hand to hand over the drop. "Did you ever finish college? What happened with the new romantic interest, what's-her-name? That was such an interesting storyline."

"Yeah, I just graduated. I'm moving here actually. And Gretchen and I didn't work out. I'm sure you already knew that though, didn't you?"

"Of course. I know everything."

Claire suddenly walks over to where Gabriel is standing and grabs the glass out of his hand. "Stop doing that, you're making me nervous."

Gabriel draws himself up to his full height, towering over her as he leans in close. "I wouldn't have dropped it, Claire bear. You know that."

She has to crane her neck back to look at his face, but she looks as determined as she always does (as Gabriel supposes she always will). "I know that. It doesn't mean I have to like it." She turns on her heel and walks away, taking his empty glass with her.

Gabriel wonders if a fall from twenty stories up could kill even him. He decides not and heads back into the party.

_YOUR son, Katie. I sure as shit never wanted it._

"Are you kidding me?"

Peter stands in front of Claire and Gabriel, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. "It makes sense. Gabriel needs a roommate, you need a place to stay in New York, at least for a little bit. You guys don't have to talk even, just live peacefully together. Think of it as a test run for the rest of existence."

Gabriel jumps up suddenly as Claire stares in shock at her uncle. "I'm going to-" he pauses, unsure of what exactly he is going to do. "go on the balcony." He makes his exit as quickly as possible, leaving behind Claire's incredulous face and Peter's imploring one. Even once he shuts the door, he can hear their conversation.

"Peter, you can't be serious."

"Why not? You know as well as I do that he's not that guy anymore-"

The rain is coming down, a light drizzle that slowly soaks through his shirt until he can feel the cold all over his skin.

"Really? Not the guy who killed your brother and my mother and Jackie and hundreds of other people and sliced into my skull? Because he is still that guy. He's just better at hiding it now."

Gabriel glares at his hands, as if through one look he can erase everything he's ever done. The drop down looks more inviting than it ever has, the promise of all of it (_the guilt, the memories, the want, and everyone, all of the faces_) going away.

"Claire, you weren't there. You weren't with him for the years that he was trapped in that hell-hole. Alone. He's partnered with your dad, he's doing a lot of good work. Hell, if Noah can forgive him, anyone can. Just give him a chance. You don't have to talk to him, just see if you can coexist. The rent is cheaper when you have a roommate, trust me."

She's silent for a moment, and then, "Okay. We're not going to be friends or anything, we're just going to live together. Which makes no sense, so you know."

He spreads his arms in a "T" pose, raising his head to the sky. He thinks of his mother's gold cross necklace, of the massive spire of the Gothic church he went to when her outbursts got too violent.

"Please, Claire. Try to be civil to him. He has more in common with you than you think."

The rain caresses his face with a cold hand even as the wind whips through his hair. When was the last time someone touched him? When was the last time he felt someone else's skin?

"He already tried that trick, Peter. I have nothing in common with him. He's a psychopath."

He finds he can't remember the last time that happened. He runs his hands through his hair, closing his eyes.

"Claire-"

His clothes are completely soaked through now, the rain coming down harder than it did before.

"I'll talk to you later, Pete."

He shivers violently.

"Bye, Claire."

His hands are open, palms facing up, the water so cold he can feel it in his bones. He turns and walks back inside as the front door clicks shut.

_Look what you made me do._

Her suitcase is all bright colors, purples and pinks and little yellow flowers. All of her boxes had come a week earlier from D.C., so Gabriel took it upon himself to sort them into which room they needed to be unloaded in. He figured she wouldn't take too kindly to him touching any of her possessions, so he simply waited until she came to the apartment herself.

Now Claire stands in the middle of the wreckage, her hair in a messy bun as the nape of her neck, looking every bit as frazzled as he expected she would.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?"

"I'm fine." She shrugs her shoulders, rolls her neck, and cracks her knuckles. "I got this."

Which she apparently does because she has everything sorted in less than three hours. Gabriel is more than slightly impressed, but he decides that she would not appreciate any compliment coming from him, so he keeps quiet.

She moves through the apartment like a ghost, avoiding his presence whenever possible. The only way he knows she still lives there is the slight fogging of the bathroom mirror in the morning when he goes to get ready for work.

(Once, he brushes his hand over the steam and is struck with an image of her in only a towel doing the same thing, her wet hair drawn around her shoulder, her lips pink from the heat. He avoids touching everything in the bathroom after that.)

He continues with work, continues collecting books and movies, continues sketching (avoiding her face more now, not wanting her to accidentally see). He takes up watchmaking again so that he has an excuse to spend hours in his bedroom while she eats or watches TV. When he leaves some of the watch parts out on the kitchen table, sometimes he comes back to find them organized by shape, size, or color.

One night, while he is working on a particularly difficult piece (a diamond-encrusted gold pocket watch) the table lamp sputters once, twice, then goes out. He walks over to the light switch and flicks it, finding that those are all off too. He can see through the window that a couple of other buildings seem to have their power down too. Fantastic.

"Fuuuuuck." So Claire knows what happened. "Whyyyyyyyy?"

Gabriel walks out into the living room to find her frantically clicking at her laptop screen. "Something wrong?"

"Eugh, just ran out of battery. And now the fucking stove won't work so I can't even eat dinner."

"I-I could get us some burgers or something. I can't work when the power's out anyway."

Claire looks up from the black screen, a smile lighting up her face. "Oh my god, that would be so great. I'll write down what I want."

She hands him a post-it after locating a pen, and Gabriel leaves the apartment feeling better. Even if it was about food, she still smiled at _him_. That has to count for something.

They eat in silence when he comes back, sitting two seats apart at the counter. After Claire throws away the aluminum foil wrapping, she turns to Gabriel. "Why are you being so nice to me? Or I guess I should ask, why are you being so nice in general? I've been here five months and you haven't so much as sneezed at me wrong, so what is it?"

Gabriel stares at his hands, trying to think of how to best respond. "Peter's already told you all about the wall, right?"

"Yeah, he wanted me to like you."

"Well, that's it, pretty much. That's my worst fear, I know it's yours. Being alone, being empty. The only person you can talk to is yourself, the only voice you hear is yours. But you can still see all the faces, all the faces of the people you _ruined_. All the faces of the people who ruined you. The only reason I didn't go insane in there is because-" He stops, realizing that he's pointing to his tattoo, though it is still covered by his sleeve.

"You didn't go insane because you could still see my face?"

He nods hesitantly. Where is she going with this?

"I've got news for you, Sylar. I'm not your savior. I'm not even my own savior. You took that away from me when you opened up my head and rummaged around in my brain." She screws up her face, spitting the words as if they are poision. "You _ruined_ me. So the next time you want me to feel sorry for you, save it. You're not the only one who got dealt a shitty hand. I'm done here."

He feels a sudden overwhelming anger, feels his vision clouding with red even as he grabs her arm as she walks past him. "What do you want from me?" he hisses. "What do you want me to do? Say I'm sorry? I know that won't change anything, I know that won't help the fact that I murdered your parents and hundreds of other people and attacked you in your own home. But it's true. I am sorry. I can't say that I don't wish you would forgive me, but I understand that you can't. I just want you to know that it's the truth. I'm _sorry_."

She wrenches her forearm from his grasp easily (apparently his grip wasn't very strong). She glares up at him and walks back to her room, slamming the door behind her.

Gabriel moves back to the counter to rest his head against the table. He digs his nails into his forearm, unable to tell if it hurts or not. He determines that it does even as the lights flicker back on.

_I will never forgive you, Sylar. You murdered my brother. You killed him._

"Gabriel." Her voice is soft, as quiet as the ticking coming from the watch on his bedside table. He isn't even really sure he hears it, not until he opens his eyes and sees her standing over his bed. The only light is coming from behind her, illuminating her blonde hair as if it were a halo around her head.

She hasn't spoken to him in two months, and she chooses now to talk?

"Claire," he says wearily. "It's two in the morning. What is it?"

She shrugs her shoulders just slightly, and Gabriel notices suddenly that the way the light reflects off of the skin on her neck makes her look like some kind of angel. He's struck again by how beautiful she is.

"I-I was thinking." She settles herself down on the bed, one leg still on the ground, facing him. "I'm sorry for the what I said a while ago. You've been nothing but nice to me for four years, you've been patient while I mock everything you've done, you haven't tried to make me love you when I wasn't ready to even look. I want you to know that I get it. I get that you're sorry. It doesn't mean I forgive you, not yet at least. It just means that I think we should try. You know, to get along. I know that you've had a hard time of it, and if I can forgive my dad for all the pain he's caused because of the reasons he had to cause it, then I think maybe one day I can do the same for you. So, yeah. That's all I wanted to say."

He blinks at her in disbelief until he smiles at her, a genuine smile, not a smirk. "Thank you, cheerleader."

She stands and abruptly leaves his bedroom, closing the door behind her. Gabriel finds it difficult to fall asleep for the rest of the night, and when he finally does, his dreams are filled with images of a girl with gold hair and unmarred skin.

Life is the apartment becomes noticeably easier after that night. She doesn't avoid him in the morning anymore, getting up to go to work at a reasonable hour instead of the ungodly time she set for herself previously. He doesn't lock himself in his room at night but finds that he can work in the living room while Claire watches TV.

She has horrible taste in television, choosing to watch _Gossip Girl_ and not _Star Trek_. He argues with her about the merits of watching science fiction and finds that she is great at discussion. Usually, by the end, she simply huffs in annoyance and goes back to her show. Gabriel never misses the way she smiles just a little bit when she thinks he isn't looking.

The books that Gabriel gets from the bargain book stores around the city begin to pour out of his room, taking over all the available space in the apartment. He often finds Claire reading on the balcony when the weather is nice, the sun shining on her legs, the wind blowing her hair around her head.

He finds himself drawing her again, but her hands and collarbone and knees instead of just her face. Sometimes he draws himself, his too-big eyebrows and spiked hair, his rough hands and soft eyes. He doesn't like those drawings as much, but sometimes he sees her looking at them in wonder.

He is more surprised than he should be to realize that he has fallen in love with her. (He wonders if he's been in love with her since she was the last real thing on earth, since hers was the only face he knew anymore.)

She laughs when he tells terrible jokes, she listens when he gets excited about a concept, she has interesting thoughts and ideas, and once she looked at one of the watches he was working on and called it beautiful.

She is beautiful, and she is not his.

_Don't touch that, it's not for you. Good young men listen to their mothers._

The spring has turned into summer once again, the air so stifling hot Gabriel keeps the fans running at all times, breaks his rule of not using his powers unless necessary to freeze orange juice when Claire decides she wants a popsicle. He finds that she is correct in her assertion that popsicles are the best summertime food.

Peter and Emma's wedding passes, Gabriel acting as the best man and Claire acting as one of the bridesmaids. They dance one fast song together and share a cab back to the apartment. She smiles at him during the ceremony, so he considers the night a success.

(He doesn't tell her about the conversation he has with Noah during the reception, when he says "I know you're in love with her. I would have killed you for that a few years ago, but I won't now. Just know, if I see you so much as give someone else a paper cut, I will not hesitate. Clear?" Gabriel downs the rest of his champagne to stop himself from screaming.)

She is out on the balcony again just after sunset, having taken a new book to read out with her. He works on a watch at the kitchen table, one with silver lining and Victorian flair. When she walks back into the apartment and throws the book in front of him, he jumps suddenly, the parts of the watch flying out of the back. He stops them and floats them back into place as he set the piece back on the table.

"Is something wrong?"

She points frantically at the book (she's finally reading his copy of _Pillars of the Earth_) and he can see tears welling in her eyes. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He stands, shoving his chair away as he grips her by her shoulders. "Claire, what is it?"

"You drew me! All over this book! Every part of me is there, my fucking hair and my hands and my eyes and even my fucking knees! What game are you playing? Are you trying to get me to like you because you're obsessed with me again?"

"No, that's not it, please, wait-"

"I knew it, I knew you were exactly the-"

"Claire, I'm in love with you!"

She stops, her chest heaving from her frantic breathing, tears tracking their way down her cheeks.

"Oh god. Please, Claire. Just listen for one minute." He begins pacing the length of the kitchen, not quite sure what to say. "I'm in love with you, okay? I'm not obsessed, I'm not playing another sick game.

"You're so good, you know? You're such a genuinely good person, and I wanted to take that in the beginning. I wanted to ruin you, make you just like me. But you never gave in. You were always so much better than me. And when I was trapped in that nightmare that Parkman put me in, I drew you everywhere because you were the only thing I could see that was still good. And when I got out, I just wanted people to know that I was sorry, I wanted you to forget who I was. So I stayed away. And then you came in and you made it so much worse. So much better, but so much worse. Because then you were a real person with really interesting things to say and really wonderfully horrible cooking and a really amazing strength in you that I have never had. And you are so beautiful and I wanted. And I still draw you, everywhere, your face is still the only really good thing that I see. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable, I'm just. I'm gonna go."

He leaves the watch on the table as he reaches for the door, only to find that Claire has somehow gotten around him and it blocking the exit to the apartment. "You know I can just knock you over, right?"

"You won't."

He deflates. "Yeah, you're right. I won't"

Claire straightens her spine, drawing herself up to her full height as she stares him in the eye. "I forgive you. For all of it." His shock apparently shows on his face because she continues with, "I didn't want to, at first. But you're sorry. And you're not that guy. And I freaked out just now because I thought that I was wrong to forgive you, but I'm not. And I think I'm still shell shocked from that bomb you just dropped, so you should probably leave, actually. I'll call you when I figure it out."

Peter rages when Gabriel explains why he's at his apartment, although he also claims that he's known since the wall. Emma simply smiles at him sympathetically as she holds her husband's hand.

(Gabriel doesn't realize until he has almost fallen asleep that the watch he left on the counter was the one he is making with her in mind.)

She texts him three days later, one word ("Okay"), and he goes to her.

(He always will.)

When he enters the apartment, she is only just standing there, her hands on her hips, surrounded by all of the books and paintings and watches and pictures of _her_, and Gabriel can't breathe for a second.

"What is this?"

"You're not so bad yourself you know. You have shitty taste in TV shows, but the books are pretty nice. The paintings are a little heavy-handed." She walks over to him, as strong and determined as she always is (as he supposes she always will be). "We can work on that, though."

_I love you, I love you, I love you. Never forget that, sweetheart._

She doesn't tell him she loves him back until the day he kisses her for the first time.

After that night (which Gabriel always refers to as _that night_), she simply goes about the same routine, pretending as if he had never said anything in the first place. It frustrates Gabriel to no end, but he also knows that she only does it to show that she has power over him (because he still knows everything).

She keeps all of the sketches he did of her, claiming that she does so only because of the aesthetic appeal. She still sits in front of the TV, night after night, watching her shows as the living room fills up with books. He works on a specific watch in the kitchen, waiting for the day when he'll give it to its proper owner.

When she finishes _Pillars of the Earth_, she calls him out onto the balcony with her phone.

"You could just open the door, Claire."

"I have unlimited minutes, I have to use it on something. Just come out here."

As he arrives onto the balcony, just as the sun sets, she faces him with a smile. "Catch." She throws the book toward the ledge of the balcony.

He nearly shrieks in despair as he catches it with invisible hands until he hears her laughing behind him. "I don't know why that use to make me nervous. That is hilarious."

He turns to face her, the book cradled in his hands. Without a thought for the consequences, he grabs her by the waist and hauls her body up on the patio table as he covers her mouth with his, slanting his lips so they fit over hers perfectly. Unlike the first time, she isn't disgusted and slightly confused. She moves against him, reciprocating his every action until pulling away with a gasp.

"'She loved him because he had brought her back to life,'" she quotes softly, light from the sun cutting a pattern across her collarbone. "I really liked that line. How many times have you read that book?"

"Too many," he growls against her throat. "I'm almost tired of it."

"Don't be. I'm just getting started."

_I love you, Gabriel. I'm sorry it took so long._

They move like ghosts throughout the world, never settling too long in one place. She changes her hair once every few years, always insisting she likes the next cut more than the last, though she eventually goes back to the short blonde style he always liked. He always collects more books, draws more sketches, fixes more time-pieces. He isn't too surprised to find that she has satisfied his hunger for the other _more_ he could never seem to get over.

He doesn't mind the fact that neither of them do anything particularly important or special. He thinks that maybe he's always been okay with that.

She remains as beautiful and strong and determined as she always was (as she always will be).

His finger traces a pattern on her shoulder blade, a lace design along the unmarred skin of her back.


End file.
